Old man Beth was making his first flight. He had had the parachute strapped on, asking for detailed instructions about its use. He feared the height; and the idea of jumping into two or three thousand feet of space was appalling. But a score of his boys were in the fire-rimmed camp. Old man Beth would give them their one slim chance of escape or he would die with them.
Jack saw there was no shaking his intention.
“Dinky engineer there,” he asked, “to put in the valve and get ’er out?”
“I’ll get ’er patched up,” evaded the old man. “I been ’round dinky engines a lot”
Jack knew then it was as he suspected. The dinky engineer was not in the camp. Probably not a man there was mechanic enough to install and adjust an intake valve properly, let alone drive the dinky down that perilous ten-mile grade to the terminal at the mouth of the St. Joe on the lake. If old Beth were sure the jump meant death, he’d jump out of the plane regardless.
“You’ll likely land in a tree-top,” Nick told Beth. “Don’t try to slip through if you do. The ’chute will hang you up. Grab on, cut your straps an’ climb down if you can. Cut your cord as soon as you jump. I’ll zoom the ship so you’ll be safe enough.”
Nick sent the plane along the Cœur D’Alene lake shore until they were directly opposite the mouth of the St. Joe River and the circling fire on Round Top mountain above it. He banked the Stearman, pulled the control stick hard back and climbed.
Beth groaned when the plane had topped the drifting gray smoke. The flames had been rushing up the mountain at greater speed than he had figured. Less than two miles, as nearly as he could judge, separated the logging camp site from the fire.
Jack watched Beth, and he knew when the old man turned sick. The draft of hot air from the flames, roaring over the mountain top made the going bumpy. The big Stearman rocked, dropped, caught the air cushion and bounced along through the air holes. Jack’s own stomach was not sitting so pretty and he was aware that Beth was having a bad time of it.
This form of air sickness is closely akin to seasickness and it requires all of a man’s nerve to keep a stiff upper lip. But Beth’s mouth was a straight line. He was looking down through the floor windows and he touched Jack’s shoulder.